Rusada

Less than a week before the International Olympic Committee leadership decides how to sanction Russia for a massive, years-long doping conspiracy, whistleblower Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov has told ESPN via emailed comments that “serious” discipline should be imposed, while leaving the door open for some athletes to participate in the upcoming PyeongChang 2018 Games.

“Innocent” athletes should “be able to compete at least under a neutral flag,” Rodchenkov said in comments forwarded by his New York-based lawyer, Jim Walden. But, Rodchenkov added, Russia needs to take “a serious first step toward reform and redemption.”

“I wish Tuesday began with a confession and apology from Russia, which would give the world confidence they might embrace truth and reform,” Rodchenkov said, referring to the day the IOC executive board has said it will announce a decision on the country’s eligibility for PyeongChang at a meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland.

“This is not the Russian way. If they are not disciplined seriously, they will be laughing at the IOC behind closed doors and plotting their next caper.”

Rodchenkov is currently under the protection of federal authorities. Walden agreed to send several short, concise questions from ESPN to Rodchenkov by email, and relayed the answers back, also by email.

The former director of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory was the chief architect of a scheme to help Russian athletes use performance-enhancing drugs and evade positive tests in the lead-up to and competition at the Sochi 2014 Games.

He fled Russia in late 2015 after being fired amid intense scrutiny of corruption revealed by whistleblowers, media reports and a World Anti-Doping Agency investigation, and after the sudden death of a friend and colleague who formerly headed the Russian Anti-Doping Agency.

In interviews with the New York Times and investigators including Canadian law professor Richard McLaren, who was commissioned by WADA to do an independent report, Rodchenkov directly implicated officials from the Ministry of Sport and RUSADA in the conspiracy, which he has said was facilitated by the FSB, Russia’s security agency.

Rodchenkov’s credibility as a witness was recently reinforced by a written decision issued by the IOC’s Oswald Commission stripping Russian cross-Country skier Alexander Legkov of his Sochi medals and banning him from future Olympic competition.

“Whichever wrongdoing he may have committed in the past, Dr. Rodchenkov was telling the truth when he provided explanations of the cover-up scheme that he managed,” the commission concluded.

Rodchenkov told ESPN he wants Russia to, “Admit the truth of McLaren’s report and give WADA access to stored samples and the lab’s back-up data. This is what the [WADA] Roadmap requires.”

WADA recently decided to continue RUSADA’s non-compliant status, triggering a continued suspension of the Russian track and field federation. The International Paralympic Committee has said it will bar the Russian team from the Winter Paralympic Games.

The scandal exposed grave weaknesses in the will and ability of the IOC and WADA to deal with government-enabled organized doping. In the email exchange, ESPN asked Rodchenkov, “What was the world’s biggest single missed opportunity for exposing the ‘Sochi Plan’ before it happened?”

He replied: “Russia was absolutely confident it wouldn’t be caught. The plan was unimaginable – opening bottles, swapping urine, using cocktail for doping. It looked like a fantasy. It was brazen and the only way to have stopped it was if our lab had lost it(s) accreditation earlier. This is why WADA should have open access to LIMS [laboratory information management systems].”

An electronic database from the Moscow lab, which has results from 2012-15, was not made available to WADA by Russian officials, but was instead conveyed by an unspecified whistleblower a matter of weeks ago.

Rhetoric against Rodchenkov from Russia has escalated in recent days, and a court there issued an arrest warrant for him in September.

The whistleblower who reported Russia’s alleged doping cover-up at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics has been accused by the state of supplying the drugs.

Russia’s inquiry unit says athletes did not know Grigory Rodchenkov had given them performance-enhancing drugs.

Rodchenkov was the director of Moscow’s anti-doping laboratory.

The accusation comes a week before Russia finds out if its Olympic ban for state-sponsored doping will be lifted before the 2018 Pyeongchang Games.

“It was established that Rodchenkov personally supplied the athletes and coaches with medicines whose proven features were not known to them but which later were established to constitute performance-enhancing drugs,” the Investigative Committee of Russia said in a statement.

It adds that he destroyed the athletes’ samples and then accused Russia of implementing a doping programme.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) has previously accused Rodchenkov of asking for and accepting bribes and destroying more than 1,400 blood and urine samples.

He fled to the United States in January 2016 after Moscow’s court issued an arrest warrant.

The McLaren report, published in 2016 and commissioned by Wada, alleged state-sponsored doping in Russia. It detailed evidence of an “institutionalised and disciplined medal-winning conspiracy” that operated in Russia between 2011 and 2015. More than 1,000 Russian athletes – including Olympic medallists – were said to have benefited.

The country denies its involvement in doping.

Russia’s anti-doping body Rusada was declared “non-compliant” and the country’s track and field team was banned from the 2016 Rio Olympics, and also the 2017 World Athletics Championships.

The International Olympic Committee will next week hear the results of two investigations into Russian doping before making its decision on whether the country should compete in Pyeongchang.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is to rule against reinstating its Russian counterpart (RUSADA), after it was declared still “non-compliant” with the WADA code following a meeting of its foundation board on Thursday.

“WADA Foundation Board approves the recommendation by the Independent Compliance Review Committee that RUSADA remain non-compliant,” WADA wrote on Twitter.

Russian Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov denounced the decision by WADA’s Foundation Board, saying that the two roadmap demands Russia did not meet, according to the ruling, are politicized. Those are to acknowledge an existence of a state-sponsored doping program in Russia, and to provide access for WADA officers to the sealed Moscow laboratory

“These two demands are obviously of a political nature,” Kolobkov said, as cited by R-Sport.

The head of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC), Alexander Zhukov, suggested that the Compliance Review Committee chaired by Jonathan Taylor is devising false pretexts to keep RUSADA suspended.

“Taylor’s committee has been inventing reasons not to reinstate RUSADA; the accusations against RUSADA are simply a joke!” Zhukov said, as cited by R-Sport.

In addition to Russia, the board also declared Guinea, Kuwait and Mauritius non-compliant.

Earlier, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko stated that no matter what WADA decided on RUSADA’s status, it will not affect Russia’s participation in the Olympics, as the latter is “a prerogative of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), not WADA.”

A decision on Russia may be made at the next IOC Executive Board meeting in Lausanne scheduled for December 5. At the meeting, the members are expected to review a report into the alleged state-sanctioned doping system in Russia by a commission led by Swiss politician Samuel Schmid.

The Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) was initially declared non-compliant with the WADA code following a damning report by WADA’s Independent Commission in November 2015, that alleged a widespread and systematic use of performance enhancing drugs by Russian athletes. As a result, the Russian track and field team was banned from the 2016 Rio Olympics and RUSADA was stripped of its international accreditation.

WADA later laid out a roadmap for RUSADA to be reinstated, with one of the key demands being that Russia must publicly accept the findings of the WADA-commissioned investigation by Richard McLaren of July 2016, implying an existence of a state-sponsored doping system in Russia.

The second part of the report, released in December 2016, claimed that over 1,000 Russian athletes including summer, winter and Paralympic competitors were involved in the state-sponsored doping scheme. Without disclosing any names, McLaren then claimed that samples of 12 Russian medalists from 2014 Sochi Olympics were tampered with.

In the wake of the report, an International Olympic Committee Disciplinary Commission chaired by Denis Oswald was established to re-analyze the samples for traces of potential foul play. Based on the commission’s findings early November, the IOC annulled the results of six Russian skiers in Sochi and barred them from competing in any future Winter Olympic games. IOC pointed to the anti-doping rules violations allegedly committed by the athletes, without specifying their kind.

Among those banned is the winner of men’s 50km marathon Alexander Legkov, Maxim Vylegzhanin, a silver medalist in men’s team sprint and marathon, as well as Evgeniy Belov, Evgenia Shapovalova, Julia Ivanova and Alexey Petukhov.

Vylegzhanin and Legkov have announced they are appealing the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), with the president of Russia’s Cross-Country Skiing Federation, Elena Valbe, telling RT that the organization will “fight until the last drop of blood” to prove the innocence of the skiers.

In June, RUSADA, was granted permission to run and plan tests in Russia for the first time since its suspension, although under oversight of international WADA experts and the officers of the UK Anti-Doping Agency (UKAD).

WADA Director General Olivier Niggli, who visited RUSADA Moscow headquarters in July, commended the changes that have been made by the organization to meet the WADA criteria, saying that it “goes in the right direction.”

In August, Mutko said he did not see any problems for Russia in implementing the WADA criteria. He admitted that while there were some failures within the Russian anti-doping system, no state-run doping program designed to arrange and cover up the usage of banned substances ever existed in Russia.

Russian Athletics Federation (RUSAF) head Dmitry Shlyakhtin has expressed hope that the upcoming meeting with the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) working group will be productive.

The meeting, which is set for October 30 in Oslo, Norway, will take place with the working group designed to assess the restoration of RUSAF’s international membership.

RUSAF’s membership was suspended in November 2015 following a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) investigation into alleged state-sponsored doping in Russia.

“A lot of work has been done in recent times to battle doping in Russia. We have met the majority of requirements [set by the IAAF] to restore the federation’s membership,” Shlyakhtin said, TASS reported.

“We hope to hold an effective meeting with the IAAF working group members, the results of which will be announced after the talks concluded. We all are looking forward to seeing our athletes competing again at the world’s stadiums and we hope to see them performing under the Russian flag.

“We realize the importance of every step, we are continuing working and doing everything in our power. And when a team is trying to squeeze the most out of its efforts, the victory is right around the corner,” Shlyakhtin added.

RUSAF’s fully-fledged membership is not expected, however, to be restored at the upcoming meeting which is possible only after the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA), which was declared non-compliant in November 2015, is reinstated.

RUSADA Director General Yuri Ganus stated on Monday that the organization has met practically all the requirements to be declared WADA Code-compliant again. “RUSADA has fulfilled all the requirements and criteria within its competence to return to compliance with WADA,” Ganus said.

“Final step was taken at last week’s Supervisory Board meeting, where the head of Disciplinary Anti-Doping Committee and a candidate for the post of the ethics officer were chosen,” Ganus concluded.

RUSADA must fill in two remaining WADA requirements unmet by: publicly accepting the findings of the McLaren Report and providing access to the stored doping probes of the Moscow laboratory which were sealed up due to a federal investigation.

Organization’s future will be discussed at a WADA Executive Committee meeting on November 16.

Russian athletes can take part in the international track-and-field events only as neutral athletes, though the majority of licenses, issued by the IAAF, will expire by the end of the year.

Senior figures in British athletics asked Mo Farah to split with controversial coach Alberto Salazar before the World Athletics Championships in London, only for the four-time Olympic champion to refuse.

Concerned by the negative impact Farah’s continued association could have when the American remains the subject of a United States Anti-Doping investigation, a prominent figure in the sport was asked by UK Athletics to meet Farah and raise the issue after he competed in Ostrava on June 27.

Farah instantly dismissed the possibility of dropping the man who masterminded his amazing transformation from also-ran to arguably the finest distance-runner of all time after also clinching six world titles.

Salazar has always maintained his innocence, but Sportsmail can reveal that the American’s position as a distance-running consultant for UKA was secretly terminated in September 2015.

In the build-up to London 2017 there appeared to be a carefully orchestrated campaign to put distance between Farah and Salazar, with reports of a probable separation after the championships amid claims that his involvement with the Briton had been limited for some time.

That, however, was not the case. Asked on Wednesday if Salazar remains Farah’s coach, his representatives told this newspaper: ‘Alberto is still Mo’s coach.’

Clearly a compromise was reached for the World Championships, with Salazar staying away from London to prevent the situation with USADA from over-shadowing Farah’s last major event on the track and his farewell to British fans. Instead, as this newspaper revealed, Salazar sent his son.

UK Athletics had been nervous about their own association with Salazar since doping allegations about the Nike Oregon Project, where Farah trains, surfaced in a joint BBC Panorama-ProPublica report in June 2015.

Following an investigation into the Panorama claims by the Performance Oversight Group, UKA issued a carefully worded statement in September 2015.

‘In July we said that there was no evidence of any impropriety on the part of Mo Farah and no reason to lack confidence in his training programme,’ it said. ‘The Oversight Group have restated that view. They have also found no reason to be concerned about the engagement of other British athletes and coaches with the Oregon Project.’

But the UKA board took the immediate decision to end Salazar’s wider association with British distance-runners, limiting him to working with just Farah.

It meant Salazar still had a contract with UKA. But he was informed that his position as a distance-running consultant, technically unpaid as his salary was paid by UKA sponsors Nike, would not exist while the USADA investigation was ongoing.

When a USADA report on the Oregon Project was leaked by Russian hackers earlier this year, the situation once again became uncomfortable for UKA.

On Wednesday one source claimed that there was a desire to see Farah part company with Salazar before he runs in April’s Virgin London Marathon. Indeed, it was said there had been a power struggle between Marathon boss Dave Bedford and Farah prior to Farah committing to the race.

But the talk that took place in Ostrava, Sportsmail understands, was initiated by the governing body. That led to further erosion in the relationship between Farah and UKA. As we revealed in August, Farah refused to work with head of endurance Barry Fudge in the build-up to London. Fudge worked with Salazar for years.

According to one source on Wednesday, the root of the split was Farah’s frustration with Fudge for devoting more of his time to younger runners such as Andrew Butchart and Laura Muir.

UKA are looking at their future funding plans. If they decide to remove Farah from their list of funded athletes, at least they would sever links with Salazar.

With what some are calling the biggest doping scandal in Athletics history growing every day, it can no longer solely be about catching the athletes who are illegally doping for performance enhancement but also catching and preventing those National Anti-Doping Agencies (NADOs) that are enabling them to do so.

To understand the current stand point on the issue of doping in sport and its history, we have put together a timeline of athletes, personnel and organizations who have been banned due to violating the Anti-Doping Rules. This timeline includes cases from 2010 to the present, focusing on current Olympic sports. Only a handful of cases have been selected as in 2014 alone there were 1,462 Anti-Doping Rule Violations found out of 217,762 samples. These included 109 nationalities in 82 different sports.

April 2016 – Beijing’s National Anti-Doping laboratory

Suspended for a maximum of four months by the World Anti-Doping Agency after failing to comply with international standards.

April 2016 – Athletics

Russia is currently suspended from international athletics due to a report exposing widespread cheating and corruption within Russia’s anti-doping programme. If athletes are intending to compete in Rio they must undergo anti-doping controls conducted by the IAAF. These will include a minimum of three independently and externally administered anti-doping controls.

April 2016 – Rusada

A Moscow anti-doping laboratory which had been suspended by the Would Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in November 2015, had its accreditation revoked due to systematic failures within Russia’s anti-doping programme being identified by an independent commission.

April 2016 –Dr Gabriel Dollé

The former director of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF’s) medical and anti-doping department was placed under criminal investigation in November 2015 for allegedly taking bribes and being involved in a cover-up of positive Russian doping tests. However, it was stated in April 2016 that no one will face criminal charges in what some are calling the worst doping scandal in Russia’s history.

March 2016 – Tennis

Five-time Grand Slam winner Maria Sharapova provisionally suspended from tennis for testing positive for a substance called meldonium at this year’s Australian Open.

She has said she takes all responsibility as she didn’t read the renewed banned list by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) at the beginning of the year, so was not aware that this substance which she has been taking legally as medication since 2006 was a new addition.

March 2016 – Athletics

Kenya is currently under a deadline set by the WADA to implement new anti-doping measures. If they do not comply, all Kenyan track and field athletes could be banned from competing in Rio.

March 2016 – Athletics

Noah Ngeny, the Kenyan athletics representative, quit his post saying that the country’s sporting authorities were not doing enough to tackle this doping crisis. In the last three years Kenya has had 40 of its athletes banned for doping.

March 2016 – UK Anti-Doping (UKAD)

Appointed as the secretariat for an International Olympic Committee anti-doping taskforce which will oversee testing procedures and seek to fill any gaps or inconsistencies in all Olympic sports, whilst working alongside all relevant National Anti-Doping Organisations.

March 2016 – Athletics

Six Russian athletes are set to lose their medals after a court ruled that the Russian anti-doping agency, known as Rusada, had imposed bans on these athletes in a way that allowed them to keep their major titles. These athletes include race walkers Sergey Kirdyapkin, Sergei Bakulin and Olga Kaniskina and middle distance runner Yulia Zaripova who were suspended in January 2015 for violating anti-doping regulations.

December 2015 – Football

22-year-old Brazilian football midfielder, Fred, banned for one year for testing positive to diuretic hydrochlorothiazide.

November 2015 – Grigory Rodchenko

The head of a Moscow lab admitted to intentionally destroying 1,417 samples in December 2014 before WADA officials were due to visit.

November 2015 – Athletics

The All-Russia Athletics Federation (ARAF) suspended Russian athletes from sports for doping abuse, including Russian athletics champion Maria Bespalova who was given a four-year ban, Maria Konovalova, a two-time bronze medalist of the Chicago marathon and two-time Russian champion, was also disqualified for 2 years with all her results were cancelled from August 14, 2009 and runners Vlas Bredikhin and Yaroslav Kholopov were suspended from competitions for four years while race walker Yevgeny Nushtayev got a six-month ban.

November 2015 – Weightlifting

Bulgaria’s weightlifters confirmed as not eligible to participate in Rio 2016 Olympic Games by The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF). This is due to the special anti-doping policy for Rio 2016.

September 2015 – Football

A study commissioned by UEFA found that 68 out of 879 professional players recorded noticeably high levels of testosterone during 2008 to 2013. These high levels of testosterone could be a result of doping however they could also be natural. No tests were done to confirm either way.

August 2015 – ARD/WDR

A German broadcaster was given access to a database of more than 12,000 blood tests from 5,000 athletes after the biggest leak of blood test data in sporting history. It found that more than 800 athletes recorded very abnormal blood tests, 10 medals at the London 2012 Olympics were won by athletes who had very dubious test results, 21 athletes recorded blood values so extreme that they risked heart attacks or strokes and more than a third of the world’s fastest times in endurance events were achieved by athletes whose tests have triggered suspicion.

August 2015 – Athletics

Turkish middle-distance runner Asli Cakir-Alptekin banned for 8 years and stripped of the gold medals she won at the London Olympics and 2012 European Championships.

January 2015 – Athletics

Russian heptathlete Tatyana Chernova tested positive for a banned steroid after a sample that was collected in 2009 was retested. She has now received a two-year ban backdating to July 2013 and has been stripped of all of her results from August 2009 to August 2011.

January 2015 – Athletics

Olympic 3000m steeplechase gold medallist Yuliya Zaripova was handed a doping ban for two and a half years, backdated from July 2013 and her results will be annulled from June 2011 to August 2011 and July 2012 to September 2012.

January 2015 – Athletics

The Olympic walking champions Valeriy Borchin, Sergey Kirdyapkin and Olga Kaniskina as well as Russia’s 2011 world champion Sergey Bakulin and 2011 world championship silver medallist Vladimir Kanaykin were suspended after they were found guilty of violating anti-doping regulations.

April 2014 – Athletics

Liliya Shobukhova suspended for three year and two-month and her London Marathon win and 2009, 2010 and 2011 Chicago titles stripped due to abnormalities found in her biological passport. Her sentence was reduced by seven months by WADA in return for substantial assistance from the athlete.

September 2014 – Athletics

Winner of the Boston and Chicago marathons, Rita Jeptoo, a high profile Kenyan athlete was banned for two years after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs.

August 2013 – Athletics

Two year suspensions were given to 31 athletes by the Turkish Athletics Federation for drug offences including Olympic medallist Esref Apak.

July 2013 – Tennis

Tennis player Viktor Troicki banned for 18 months (reduced to 12months) after refusing to take a blood test at a tournament in Monte Carlo claiming he was feeling unwell.

Allison Randall who competes for Jamaica in the woman’s discus confirmed a positive drugs test at the Jamaican trails.

June 2013 – Athletics

Asafa Powell, the all-time fourth quickest sprinter and former 100m record holder, suspended for 18 months after a positive doping test at the Jamaican Championships.

June 2013 – Athletics

America former 100m and 200m world champion Tyson Gay tested positive for a banned anabolic steroid and suspended for a year.

June 2013 – Athletics

The Jamaican two-time Olympic 200-metres champion Veronica Campbell-Brown won an appeal against a secretly imposed two-year doping ban and has been cleared to compete with immediate effect.

June 2012 – Athletics

The IAAF confirmed that Kenyan long distance runners Mathew Kisorio, Ronald Kipchumba, Rael Kiyara and Jemima Jelagat Sumgongall were found to have positive doping tests and were banned.

June 2012 – Athletics

Mathew Kisorio spoke out about doping being a commonplace in Kenya and that he was told he wasn’t the only one. Athletics Kenya suspended Mathew Kisorio however did not look further into his allegations of Kenyan Athletics.

December 2011 – Athletics

Three of India’s 4x400m athletes in the 2010 Commonwealth Games, Mandeep Kaur, Sini Jose, Ashwini Akkunji, banned for 1 year each after failing doping tests. Three other Indian runners including sprinters Jauna Murmu and Tiana Mary Thomas and quarter miler Priyanka Panwar were also banned for a year each. Indian long jumper Harikrishnan Muralidharan was banned for two years.

December 2011 – Athletics

In light of the failed doping tests, India’s Ukrainian track and field coach Yuri Ogorodnik was sacked.

October 2010 – Athletics

Indian walker Rani Yadav tested positive for the banned anabolic agent at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and was suspended.

This was 42 out of 4210 athletes tested. Unfortunately, WADA have not yet published the results for 2015 so no data or comparison is available.

Please note, every effort has been made to ensure this list is as accurate as possible. Not all items imply guilt with numerous instances being reported on in the mainstream media. We take no responsibility for the accuracy of the media reports where this list was sourced

Washington – The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is set to clear 95 Russian athletes investigated over involvement in the country’s alleged mammoth doping programme, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

A leaked internal WADA report published by the newspaper on Tuesday said the agency found it could not gather enough evidence against 95 out of 96 Russian athletes who it has been probing.

“The available evidence was insufficient to support the assertion of an anti-doping rule violation against these 95 athletes,” WADA Director General Olivier Niggli wrote in the document. The report did not name any of the athletes under investigation.

A string of WADA reports has previously uncovered reams of evidence that the Russian authorities ran a large-scale programme to help competitors cheat international doping tests.

Russia’s Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) was declared “non-compliant” with international sport’s anti-doping code in November 2015 and its track and field Olympics squad and entire Paralympics team were barred from Rio 2016.

An independent investigation for the agency by professor Richard McLaren in 2016 implicated some 1 000 athletes in the doping system.

Moscow has furiously denied that it ran a state-sponsored scheme to cheat at international sporting events and insists it is doing its best to crack down on dopers.

And Russian officials said WADA’s decision only served to shed doubt on the revelations in McLaren’s report.

“In general the information of the McLaren report appears to be incomplete and moreover in many cases unreliable,” R-Sport agency quoted Stanislav Pozdnyakov, the deputy chief of Russia’s Olympic Committee, as saying.

“For the moment none of Russia’s 1 000 athletes mentioned in the McLaren report has been found guilty or banned on the basis of his information. Meanwhile, a year has already passed (since the report was issued).”

While this latest twist may help bolster the Kremlin’s claims, Niggli suggested to the New York Times that an absence of evidence did not necessarily prove Russia’s innocence.

“The system was very well-organised,” Niggli said. “On top of it, years after the fact, the remaining evidence is often very limited.”

Niggli said that investigations into other athletes implicated in the doping scheme are on-going.

Russia’s anti-doping agency RUSADA is currently battling to get itself reinstated, but faces a list of remaining WADA criteria that it must first meet.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) intends to hold another audit of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) four months after it is granted the status of compliance with the WADA Code, an official with the RUSADA told TASS on Wednesday.

The WADA published on August 3 second part of its Roadmap, which stipulates a set of requirements necessary for the RUSADA to implement in order to be reinstated in its rights. One of the provisions in the document “Roadmap to Code of Compliance” stated that the world’s anti-doping body would audit RUSADA, tentatively next month, and will conduct another audit “within four months of any future date from which RUSADA achieves compliance.”

“In four months after the date, when RUSADA will be granted the status of compliance with the WADA Code, the international agency is set to hold another audit,” Margarita Pakhnotskaya, the head of RUSADA’s department for educational programs, said in an interview with TASS.

“The WADA reached understating in its work with the Russian anti-doping agency and I believe that the scheduled second audit is nothing but a formal procedure,” she added.

On May 18, the WADA Board of Directors convened for a session in Montreal, Canada, to review the progress of Russia’s implementation of the global anti-doping body’s roadmap requirements aimed at reinstating the country’s currently suspended membership in WADA.

The organization concluded that Russia had achieved certain progress in bringing its anti-doping system in line with the global requirements, but added that other criteria still remained to be implemented.

Less than two years ago the WADA Independent Commission carried out an investigation in regard to the activities of RUSADA, the All-Russia Athletics Federation (ARAF), the Moscow anti-doping laboratory and the Russian Sports Ministry, and announced the results of the probe on November 9, 2015.

The commission accused certain athletes and sports officials of doping abuse and involvement in other activities related to violations of international regulations on performance enhancing substances. The work of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory and RUSADA was eventually suspended.

Starting last year’s January control over anti-doping regulations in Russian sports has been exercised by RUSADA strictly under the supervision of the British anti-doping agency (UKAD).

Russia’s anti-doping agency (RUSADA) still has “significant work” to do to get its suspension lifted, the World Anti-Doping Agency said on Monday.

WADA President Craig Reedie said RUSADA, suspended in 2015 after the drugs scandal that led to Russian track-and-field athletes being banned from the following year’s Rio Olympics, had taken steps forward in the past year. But more were needed, he said.

“There remains significant work to do. (RUSADA) must demonstrate its processes are autonomous and independent from outside interference,” Reedie told an international meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland.

In a reminder of the continuing fallout from the scandal, the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Monday upheld a lifetime ban on Sergei Portugalov, former chief of the Russian Athletics Federation’s Medical Commission, for his role in providing illicit substances to Russian competitors.

In a 2015 report, WADA had written that Portugalov supplied performance-enhancing drugs to athletes and coaches, administered doping programmes and “even injected athletes himself”.

In November 2015, a WADA commission said Russia had systematically broken anti-doping rules. It subsequently revoked the status of the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory and stated that RUSADA did not comply with WADA standards.

A WADA-commissioned report by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren found state-backed doping involved more than 1,000 athletes in the country.

Russian Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov said in Lausanne that RUSADA was working towards being considered compliant within the year, and listed what he said was progress on restructuring the country’s anti-doping system.

“We are ready to cooperate. We are open to all kinds of inspections,” said Kolobkov, speaking after Reedie.

Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month denied the McLaren report’s findings about state-sponsored doping but acknowledged there had been individual instances of cheating that indicated the country’s current system was not working.

“The ball is in their camp and we will see when they will be able to deliver this programme,” WADA Director General Olivier Niggli said.

He described Putin’s comments as “very encouraging, going in the right direction”.

“I hope that politics can now stay at the door and we can all focus on protecting clean sports and clean athletes,” Niggli said.

Russia’s athletics ban has continued into 2017 and may include the August world championships in London, after a Task Force monitoring the nation’s anti-doping programme refused last month to put any dates on a “road map” for a return.

The 208th IAAF Council Meeting chaired by IAAF President Sebastian Coe was held today (6) at the Riviera Marriott Hotel, Cap d’Ail, France.

TRANSFER OF ALLEGIANCE

Following a proposal by Sebastian Coe, Council has today frozen all new transfers of allegiance in athletics by exercising its powers under the Constitution to revoke Competition Rules 5.2(b), 5.4(d) and 5.4(e) with immediate effect. A working group, set up to study the subject area, will submit proposals for new rules as a matter of urgency and no later than the end of this year.

Today’s decision does not affect the 15 applications for transfer which are already in process.

Sebastian Coe commented: “It has become abundantly clear with regular multiple transfers of athletes especially from Africa that the present rules are no longer fit for purpose. Athletics, which at its highest levels of competition is a championship sport based upon national teams, is particularly vulnerable in this respect. Furthermore, the present rules do not offer the protections necessary to the individual athletes involved and are open to abuse.”

Hamad Kalkaba Malboum, Africa Area Group Representative on the IAAF Council, who will drive this piece of work with the working group chaired by Mr Hiroshi Yokokawa, said: “The present situation is wrong. What we have is a wholesale market for African talent open to the highest bidder.

Our present rules are being manipulated to the detriment of athletics’ credibility. Lots of the individual athletes concerned, many of whom are transferred at a young age, do not understand that they are forfeiting their nationality. This must end and a new way forward found which respects the athletes’ rights and the sports’ dignity.”

IAAF TASKFORCE – RUSSIA

Rune Andersen, the independent chairman of the IAAF Taskforce, delivered its latest report on the reinstatement of the Russian Athletics Federation (RusAF).

The Taskforce’s recommendation, which Council approved, was that RusAF was not ready for reinstatement.

While acknowledging several positive developments at its recent meetings in Moscow last month with RusAF President Dimitri Shlyakhtin, Colonel Zherdev of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, 1500m runner Andrey Dmitriev and new Minister for Sport Pavel Kolobkov, the Taskforce pointed to some negative developments since its last report to Council in December.

These have included unhelpful public comments recently made by some Russian sporting officials. RusAF also continues to face practical and legal difficulties in enforcing provisional doping bans and there continues to be very limited testing of Russian track and field athletes at the national level as well as troubling incidents at what testing is taking place.

Roadmap to reinstatement

The Taskforce set out a roadmap for RusAF’s reinstatement based upon the following milestones being met:

– All outstanding Verification Criteria must be satisfied;
– The testing of Russian athletes must take place without further incidents or difficulties;
– RusAF explains why in the past it has been unable to and how in the future it will be able to enforce all suspensions imposed on athletes and athlete support personnel under its jurisdiction in an effective and timely fashion;

– There has been an appropriate official response by Russia to the McLaren findings that officials from the Ministry for Sport, the FSB, and the Centre for Sport Preparation were involved in the doping scheme, either by convincingly rebutting the findings or acknowledging and properly addressing them ;
– RusAF has taken demonstrable objective and practical steps to cultivate the clean sport movement championed by Andrey Dmitriev and other Russian athletes;

– WADA has reinstated RUSADA as the official, Code-compliant NADO for Russia.
Clear pathway to competition for clean athletes

It is the IAAF’s natural instinct to assist the competition opportunities of clean athletes. Since Russia’s suspension in November 2015, the IAAF has established a clear pathway for athletes who are not tainted by the Russian system to apply to compete internationally as neutral athletes while their federation remains suspended.

On 17 June 2016, Council amended Competition Rule 22.1 to allow athletes to apply for permission to compete, with guidelines for those applications published on 23 June 2016 and updated on 3 January 2017.

To facilitate this process, 30 Russian athletes were added to the IAAF International Registered Testing Pool (IRTP) in 2016. In addition, 10 athletes were added in January 2017, bringing the total of Russian athletes in the pool to more than 60.

Inclusion in the IRTP doesn’t guarantee an athlete’s application will be approved. There are other factors that will be considered by the Doping Review Board (DRB). In particular, the DRB continues to work through the evidence and intelligence concerning the names of the 200 Russian athletes forwarded by the McLaren investigation team.

Sebastian Coe commented: “Our priority is to return clean athletes to competition but we must all have confidence in the process. Clean Russian athletes have been badly let down by their national system. We must ensure they are protected and that those safeguards give confidence to the rest of the world that there is a level playing field of competition when Russians return. This is why the IAAF has increased the number of Russians in the IRTP to guarantee they have undergone a long term recognised, independent and fully WADA Code-compliant drug-testing programme.”

As of today, 35 Russian athletes have so far applied in 2017 to compete as neutral athletes in international competition.

Today Council approved the Taskforce’s recommendation that RusAF be required to officially endorse each application submitted to the DRB.

Also upon the Taskforce’s further recommendation Council granted a blanket approval to all under-15 Russian athletes to compete in international competitions, such as the European Youth Olympic Festival, which will be held in Györ, Hungary from 22 to 30 July.

ANTI-DOPING – MOROCCO AND UKRAINE

In March 2016 the IAAF Council designated five countries as being in critical care concerning their national anti-doping programmes. The IAAF implemented an action plan to monitor compliance to IAAF Rule 30.6 with respect to the federations of Ethiopia, Morocco, Belarus, Kenya and Ukraine.

Today Council received presentations from Morocco and Ukraine on the progress they have made in 2016. Individual action plans are being prepared for the next six months in the lead up to the IAAF World Championships London 2017. Belarus, Ethiopia and Kenya will report again in three months and Ukraine will report on a monthly basis over that period.

BIDDING PROCESS – IAAF WORLD ATHLETICS SERIES

Council approved a proposal made by Sebastian Coe to no longer continue with the formal bidding process by which the IAAF has traditionally attracted applications to host IAAF World Athletics Series competitions, including the IAAF World Championships.

In future, the IAAF will now assess the strategic goals for growing the sport in relation to each IAAF competition, targeting cities from countries and regions which will best assist the delivery of those aims. The aim is to create a true partnership matching the hopes and ambitions of potential hosts with those of the IAAF.

The new selection process will commence with the awarding of IAAF World Athletics Series events after 2021, until then the established bidding process will continue.